In the case of Skipton Financial Services Limited v. Allan [2014] CSOH 106, the petitioner brought proceedings seeking to interdict their former employee from, among other things, soliciting and dealing with certain customers of the petitioner. The petitioner relied upon restrictive covenants in relation to solicitation and dealing with customers post-employment in the respondent’s contract. The petitioner’s case relied on drawing inferences from various circumstantial pieces of evidence that the respondent had been attempting to solicit and deal with some customers. The respondent resisted the motion, broadly speaking, on two grounds: (i) they argued that the petitioner’s inferences were unjustified and, accordingly, the petitioner had failed to show a good arguable case; and (ii) they argued that the clause in the contract on which the petitioner relied only covered services that were identical to those of the petitioner (rather than those that were materially similar or competitive with the petitioner) and that the respondent was now providing different services. 

Lord Matthews granted interim interdict in respect of the non-solicitation and non-dealing clauses (although he refused to grant interim interdict in respect of clauses concerned with confidential information). His lordship accepted the petitioner’s submissions that the various incidents relied upon, when taken cumulatively, amounted to a cogent prima facie case of breach of the relevant restrictive covenants. His lordship, also, accepted the petitioner’s submissions as to the proper construction of the clauses in the contract. Finally, his lordship agreed with the petitioner’s submission that the balance of convenience favoured the granting of the order.

AM Advocates’ Timothy Young was instructed for the petitioner.

For a copy of Lord Matthews’ opinion, click here